Encoded for for the Veterans History Project, June 29, 2020.
All letters in the John Edward Fourt collection were digitized.
The following letters were transcribed from the handwritten originals by Veterans History Project staff. No alterations to this transcription has been made, although spelling errors are indicated with [sic]. Any special emphasis (i.e. underlining) is presented *between asterisks*.
8 April 1970
Mom & Dad,
I received you box of salt water taffy several day ago – you are right, I would rather have had a sub. Never-the-less, thanks, most of the platoon and myself have enjoyed the box for the last several days. About a week ago I stumbled onto the Vietnamese equivalent of the submarine sandwitch[sic]. I bought one and found it something less than I expected. Not only that but I had the runs for three day afterwards.
The Army continues to stumble along making blunder after blunder. Last night we sent half our platoon out on our nightly routine ambush patrol. It was just before sunset and they were just a few 100 meters from their ambush site when a strange second lieutenant and a platoon sergeant suddenly appeared before them. When question ^ed^ our AP [teams?] that they are an AP from another company from the
our company headquarters only to find that they also don’t know what is going on. Finally after an hour of fooling around, headquarters calls back and informs our AP that there has been a mix-up (something that they were already pretty well ^aware of) and that they will have to move a kilometer to another AP sight. By now it is very dark out and moving at night is about the most scary thing you can do. Not only do you have to worry about the enemy but also any American ambush that might be in your line of travel & waiting to blow you away.
Why you consider there are at most four companies in the battalion on operation at one time, you would think that coordination would be reasonably easy. To say that last nights mix-up was a pathetic blunder would be an understatement. It is really amazing that the two companies didn’t end up shooting at each other. If it had been darker, I imagine that is what would have happen. Our most dangerous enemy is not Charlie but ourselves.
Denny.